Disclaimer: Inception belongs to Nolan and Warner Brothers and loads of other people who are not me.
Notes: This is now going to be at least a four-part fic. Takes place during the film.
He could stay here, he should stay here, he deserves it for everything that he has put the others through. He could never be the father James and Phillipa deserve, not after everything that he has put them through. He's fucked up. He's risked the lives of others. He's crossed every line he had drawn for himself.
These are Dominic Cobb's thoughts that occur to him as the ocean tosses his small boat around. The rickety boat is fashioned from what had been the dining room table. While Limbo is and can do many things, it does not seem to want to produce a boat for him. It has (Had? Will? Did? He's never sure.) taken him four days to build it. Four days of quiet and loneliness. How many times had he looked to his side, hoping to see the petite young woman?
From the roof of the building, Cobb had been able to just make out the shape of a shore, far off. When he and Mal had been in Limbo, they had tried to swim, as if by swimming they'd be able to get back up to the dream layer above. They'd stopped trying quickly.
So he'd set out in the boat –a piece of shit that would have never floated in reality—and here, days later, he wondered if he'd die in Limbo. The shores of his subconscious were one thing, but the ocean?
His lips are parched, and he could feel the stiffness of his weather-beaten face. Funny, he couldn't remember needing to eat or drink the last time. Maybe the water was different. Maybe he would stay here without even having to try. The boat goes over a little bit of another wave, and Dom's body is rocked gently with the movement, his head shifting slightly.
Eyes fluttering shut, he lets out a heavy sigh. In this moment of desperation, despite the fact that he knew he was at fault for the world he was currently in, he prayed. At least one more look at his children, he begs. And then unbidden, the crooked, lovely smile of his Architect appears before him. At least one more moment with her. He didn't deserve it, but he wants it.
Eyes still closed, he remembers her, takes comfort in the memory of her, her caring, warm eyes; the sound she made as she moved below him; her incredible mind. Ariadne had been the reason they had made it so far, the driving force as they had gone ahead, continued on with the job. She had wanted him to have his family back, his life. She had worked with a single-mindedness to help him, to ensure him his happiness.
"You're never going to reach his shore like this," says a voice above him. Even with his eyes closed, he knows who it is. Dom risks only one eye open. "Phillipa and James are waiting for you."
Ariadne's face and hair are blocking out the sun, sheltering him and for an instant, he can only sigh with some two-fold relief. She helps him to sit up, balancing the boat as he moves to sit across from her.
She's in the dress from the event, that red one, the same shade as the sweater she wears and the color of her lips. She's wearing her little jacket over it, and she's got those boots on, the pair she's always stomping around in. Ariadne gives him an easy smile and wrestles a strand of hair that the wind is tugging at, tucking it finally behind her ear. He's never seen her do that before. Not, in that manner.
"You're not real," he states.
"You needed me," she responds, without a shrug. "You needed incentive, and so you thought of me."
The wind that suddenly comes across the water is refreshing, and he feels more awake, alert at least. The boat, despite its lack of a sail, is now moving swiftly through the water. He can make out cliffs, and a building on them.
He's still tired, still weary, but his hopes are rekindled. Ariadne's projection squints, since she is looking in the direction of what might be something like a sun, and looks at him seriously. "You've taken the guilt that you associated with Mal and you using it against yourself. It will weigh you down, Dom, it will trap you here."
'Dom'?" he echoes. Even now, in this moment, she causes the corners of his mouth to rise. He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. The ring is still there on his finger, but it's lighter, growing lighter. He looks to projection of Ariadne. "That's new."
"I'm everything you think she is, and what you want her to be," she says, and they both are kind enough to ignore whatever else the latter part of that sentence could mean (means. This is his projection, after all). Or so he thinks, because she reaches out and pushes hair out of his face.
"What are you doing?" he whispers, unable to tear his eyes away from hers even as her hand cups his face.
"What you want me to do, what you need," she murmurs. "I can't tell you with certainty how she'll react, Dom, but...you know she cares. And there's no way of knowing unless you get back to her."
"You know everything that I know, and yet-"
"You trust her, implicitly. It's the reason you told her all that you have, and risked returning to Limbo. Hearing it in her voice, even if she seems to have hints of your brevity, well, I guess you'll listen." Ariadne sits up, crosses her legs and leans back, jerks her head in the direction of the shore that they can easily see now. "I'd get out here, if I were you."
"That's a hell of a swim."
"Washing up on his shore will probably be less suspicious." She appears to be considering something for a moment. "Now would be an appropriate time to say 'goodbye', I guess."
He's tired, and so he gives in, addressing the projection as is she really were Ariadne. "I'm going to get back, I promise. I'll get back to you, and I promise when this is done...I..." he trails off when he sees the look on the projection's face. Shock and concern and love.
"Dom," she sighs, and leans forward to kiss him, and in his haste to kiss her back, he leans too far to one side and boat tips over. He's plunged into the water, and when he surfaces, there is no trace of the projection or the boat. He's more tired than he remembers being, but he pushes on towards the shore. He tires at one point, but he's close enough to the shore that he allows the tide to push him onto the sand.
A short time later, he wakes in the van and yanks at the oxygen mask and helps Saito take in a lungful of the precious air before they start towards the surface, it's Ariadne. Ariadne. Ariadne is who he is try to swim towards, with an immediacy that causes him to try to rise as quickly as possible. Ariadne and her eyes and care and oh, Ariadne. Ariadne.